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About Aeolus Nerzi

A pair of inky black feathered wings, stunted and pathetic things, jut from his shoulder blades. A small pair of horns crests his brow, reminiscent of a pit-demon. The wispy black fur that grows from the tips of his vaguely feline ears tell of the ancestry of Rakshasa, topped off with a pair of glowing orange catlike eyes.

All of this is a disguise of course. Long altered by various minor magics and illusions along with props and minor prosthesis. Able to be seen through by anyone who pays attention for long enough. However Aeolus has worn them for so long he often forgets such matters or simply doesn't care. Being born to a human to a family of Tieflings he never felt like he fit in properly when he was a young child, his siblings excluding him for being different and much of townspeople excluding him for fear of being like his family. In the end he decided to take after his Tiefling side when his mother died. A persona he has not dropped to this day, although to say its much more convincing now than two decades ago is an understatement.

When he was age 8 Aeolus lost his mother to a random act of violence in their city. She was killed and robbed in a back alley a few blocks from where they lived. At this his mothers family cut off the small sums of money they had been sending to help them get by. Left to fend for himself and 4 children between ages 14 and 5 his father started to work almost non-stop, picking up as many extra shifts as the local guard would allow. Things were tough for many years as Aeolus was growing up, sometimes you wouldn't know where the next meal is coming from. They got by quite a bit on the kindness of strangers. Unfortunately these acts of charity are few and far between for a family of tieflings. Once Aeolus turned 12 he decided he had enough of living this way and set his mind to fixing his families dire financial situation. This was his first foray into the criminal world. He would serve as a distraction sometimes, a lookout others. He even tried his hand at becoming a cutpurse, with moderate success. As he grew older some of the local thieves started to teach him the proper ways of the street. How to use thieves tools, the right way to move about quietly, how to look around a place and pick out the things that won't be missed. He made a go at being a burglar for a while before he caught the attention of a particular half-elf.

Young Adult
Vhanah Jandund was a gorgeous woman of 23 when Aeolus met her at 16, long silvery hair and a faint darkness to her skin that told of the Drow Elven blood in her veins. Aeolus had made an attempt to steal from one of her shipments into the city and she caught him red handed. But he caught her interest when not only did he have a convincing lie as to why he was there but that when questioned about what he knew of her operation he revealed a few details that were certainly not public knowledge. She offered him a paying job working for her smuggling operation as her eyes, ears, and mouth in the city. He happily accepted and for almost 2 years he spent his days organizing distractions, throwing lavish parties for local lords in her name, greasing the right palms, working his silvered tongue, and on the side having a scandalous relationship with his boss. He studied magic as he had always dreamed of doing and used his new arcane talents to aid him in his operations. Silencing guards as they prepared to shout, or charming those he did not wish to pay off. He knew it was too good to be true but the money kept flowing and kept his family set up comfortably in the two story home he had bought for them.

All of this came crashing down as expected the day after his 18th birthday. The guards had just gotten a new captain who was trying his best to clean up the streets. Aeolus knew this and had advised Vhanah to delay her next shipment of goods till things had died down. Unfortunately a few honeyed words and one seduction later Aeolus found himself waiting at the docks to receive the ship as it came in. It was only later in jail that he learned Vhanah had sold him out to the guard as the head of the smuggling operation and had gotten him to walk into a trap laid by the local guard. His own father was the one who got to make the arrest. He sat silently across from him, manacled to the seat, in the back of the wagon that took him off to rot in prison and await his sentencing. As he was thrown in his cell he had one bitter insult to spit back out at them. “If I am to hang for my crimes so are all of those who committed them with me.”

For the next few years Aeolus was shuffled around local prisons instead of being tried. He quickly learned that every time he was about to be tried is was easy enough to get a guard to get a letter out for him to one of his contacts, who would then get him information on the parties involved, the jurors, the judge, or anyone else who could be blackmailed. Thus he found the true power he could wield, from inside the walls of his cell he could manipulate people based on their fears. Their fear of being exposed, their fear of loosing their jobs, their fear of loosing respect. Aeolus became a true master of blackmail over the three years it took him to find a guard pliable enough to allow him to escape. The guard covered his escape that night and he smuggled his way onto a local ship, sailing for any land far from here.

Present Day
Arriving at his destination it did not take Aeolus long to get back to his old ways. Although this time he in it for no one but himself. He even picked up a new friend along the way in the form of Zephyr, the cat. Whom he caught trying to steal the money out of his bag while he slept. He had the thought to take her on as a companion, and as his magic grew he spent the gold on the costly ritual to bind her spirit to his as a familiar. A companion to follow him loyaly to the ends of the earth. Since this time she has served less as a servant and more as a partner in his deeds and adventures. Being as much of a bookworm as he himself is her interest is admittedly more innocent than his own, but the knowledge she brings to the table and her ability to think quickly alongside his own has saved both their hides more than once.

They traveled around like this for many years, just the two of them and whatever grand adventures they manage to get involved in. Delving into ruins in search of ancient lost knowledge, then burning it to the ground so as to hoard it to themselves. Selling information to anyone with the coin to afford it Aeolus and Zephyr have made a small name for themselves as information brokers. But Aeolus thirsts for greater power and knowledge, a fact that will likely be his undoing.

After being trapped deep underground on an ill advised delve into an abandoned azlanti ruin for many days Aeolus was saved by a group of adventurers from the Pathfinder Society. Feeling that he owed them a great debt he asked him what he could do to repay this. One of the pathfinders knew about his and his business, and asked him to renounce his darker past and come to assist with the goals of the Scarab Sages in the guild. Aeolus begrudgingly agreed after much prodding by Zephyr and has been with the guild ever since. Plying his talent for words and his knowledge of the world for the good of all. And to his chagrin he has come to view the guild as a new kind of family for him, a group to trust. At least to some length.